Mr. Eichhorn asked for the address and said “we will be doing extra maintenance of trees at first. We find that some times these trees turn out to be dead and we have to take them down,” he said.

Tom Gallagher inquired about customer satisfaction. ‘Where can we go, if we are not satisfied. I hope you hire local people to do the work. Don’t bring people from New Jersey.”

“We are planning for the worse case scenario for another storm and how we will respond,” replied Mr. Eichhorn. “We have issued an RFP for local companies to provide us with support.”

Steven Rhoads, a Wantagh firefighter, added, “you’re inheriting a system that needs a lot of work.What’s the plan for capital improvement without incurring additional costs to ratepayers?”

“Ninety percent of the work [when these storms hit] is done by mutual aid crews. These external crews are a savior. But we’ll assess the system ourselves based on new standards for infrastructure. We’ll invest wisely every year,” said Mr.O’Connell.

“We’ll look at it but it’s more expensive to install and repair, although not as easily damaged,” said Mr. O’Connell.

“We can’t replace all over head wires and each situation is unique,” added Mr. Eichhorn. “No utility is thinking wide scale replacement. The trick is to use the money we have wisely, to get the biggest bang for the buck.”